Georgia Power sets demand record during cold snap

ATLANTA (AP) -- Georgia Power says it set a record for winter peak demand earlier this week as temperatures plunged in Georgia and other parts of the country.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports ( http://bit.ly/19XgQYE ) that the record was set Tuesday. Between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. that day, estimated peak demand averaged about 16,859 megawatts. That exceeds the previous winter peak record of 15,806 megawatts, which was set on Dec. 14, 2010. Normal average winter peaks are several thousand megawatts lower than that.

Georgia Power serves 2.4 million customers in 155 of the state's 159 counties.

The utility said before the cold swept in that it had taken measures for additional electricity generation and had crews on call to deal with outages.